Taken From the Names of False Gods
by 1lostone
Summary: The Enterprise crew finds themselves on a planet that is bizarrely like Roman times from old Earth history. Then, of course, everything goes to shit.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Loosely based on the TOS ep Bread and Circuses. **romanse1** on lj requested very graphic, gritty, Spartacus-like H/C Kirk/Spock. She was kind enough to bid $30.00 and win me at the **thebig24**. auction. All my love and thanks, bb! **This is extremely graphic. The H comes way, way before C, so if you're easily offended by graphic descriptions of violence you might want to give this one a miss. **Please see the endnotes for specific warnings, posted once the entire fic is done.

Set vaguely after the events of STXII and STXIII, so assume spoilers.

Thanks to jlm121, thatworldinverted, and diva0789 for cheerleading and betaing and just general awesomeness.

Work Text:

* * *

_'the public has long since cast off its cares_

_the people who once bestowed_

_commands, consulships, legions_

_and all else,_

_now meddles no more_

_and longs eagerly for just two things-_

_Bread and Circuses.'_

**-Part I-**

Jim fights as they drag him out of his cell, but he doesn't have a fucking chance in hell. He knows it. His guards know it, and worst of all... the crowd knows it. He twists his exhausted body as he attempts to break free. Against the five guards and their gear though, Jim knows it's a stupid attempt. He kicks and bites, reduced to desperation. His nails gouge blood-filled divots in their skin until he's backhanded across the face, absently as though he was nothing but an annoying insect.

He loses consciousness. It hardly matters.

He's dead anyway.

A shock of ice cold water.

Jim jerks, gasping. His vision is blurry when he opens his eyes. For a second he thinks that he's still drugged. He_wishes_ he was still drugged. It would be so much easier to just check out; to ignore his fear and rage. He's ashamed at how little fight he has left in him.

Slowly, he blinks away the red tinge in his eye. Merikus had hit him so hard that he had broken Jim's cheekbone, and he knew that there was damage there. Drusilla had cried when she saw the damage, but Jim had been too hurt to react to the slave's tears or her feeble attempts to clean him up. The other eye is swollen shut, the eyelid puffy and hot to the touch.

Even without being able to see clearly, Jim knows that he's being watched. It's endless. Invasive. Terrifying. He can hear the dull roar of the crowd, hear their feet stomping in unison, waiting for the show that they were promised. The coliseum is incomprehensibly more vast than he had thought. He is the mouse looking up at the hawk swooping down to eat him. The stone looks to be centuries old, levels rising up and up and up into the bright blue sky. From Jim's vantage point it looks endless, filled with indistinct shapes screaming for his death. At his dazed blink, all he can see is a whirl of pale faces, all screaming and jeering.

Slowly a word becomes more distinct to his concussed brain. The furious crowd is chanting: _Iugula! Iugula! Iugula! _over and over, dragging out each syllable in unison. For a dead word it sounds powerful and strong with the power of hundreds of thousands of voices behind it. They are calling for Jim's death.

Jim's used to being the center of attention. That stirs something inside of him, some speck of _Captain Kirk_, and he straightens, ignoring the pain in his back and hips as he straightens his shoulders, jerking his head up. He's naked, brutalized, bleeding from cuts and abrasions all over his skin. His ribs sing to him a melody of agony, causing his breath to shorten and stutter.

The tone of the crowd takes on a jeering quality. Jim sees two of his captors slowly walk up on either side of where he stood. One was the ham-handed guard that swatted him from before. The other Jim doesn't know. They both walk perfectly in step as they approach the dais from either side of the tunnel, slamming their spears into the ground and saluting Merikus and Proconsul Marcus by striking their own chests. At the salute, the crowd is silenced as one. It's eerie as much as anything. Jim could have heard a pin drop. Jim can hear himself panting, struggling to breathe with broken ribs. It seems too loud in the sudden quiet.

Jim allows himself to meet Merikus' steely gaze. It's utterly bizarre for him to even acknowledge that he _knows_this guy, back when he was just Merik. Dimly, Jim can see that the two men are situated across the floor of the coliseum. Their dias is much higher, signifying their higher status. Jim is at the other end of the arena. He can see the slaves crowded miserably together on the second level, the thick chains wrapped around their hands. He knows that it will be their job to raise the crucifix once Jim is properly impaled on it. He's a lesson to them; a living tableau against the idea of opposing the status quo.

Jim blinks, unable to keep from jutting his chin out. He's aware of the cameras, broadcasting this to the millions of citizens who couldn't see the live show and knows that they can see the brief spark of hopefulness extinguished at the pronounced thumbs up Merikus gives Jim's captors. The crowd goes _insane _with approval; the immense wave of noise as painful as anything else that had happened to him before.

Jim feels his lips tremble. He knows that there is no chance. There will be no reprieve. He did what he did to save Bones and Spock, and he will not apologize for that. Still, for a brief second Jim wishes that he wasn't going to die alone.

He won't cower in front of them. He _will not._

He does anyway.

They make him bend down, forcing him into the indignity of laying down onto the long part of the cross, knowing that it is going to be what kills him. Jim doesn't struggle as they fasten the collar around his neck. It wasn't the first collar that they made him wear, and he didn't bow to that one, either. He's sickened to realize that it's caked with the detritus of some other person's death: blood, vomit and sweat. Other people, probably. Jim is hardly the first person to die this way.

Neither guard is gentle as they stretch his arms up and out, ensuring that his wrists and hands are in the exact center of the cross beam. Jim can't help the groan and the skinnier guard presses almost lovingly on JIm's broken ribs, causing him to spasm against the thick collar that kept his neck in place.

The crowd loves it.

He expects it, but it's still a shock as each guard, still moving in perfect unison (_and ohgod oh_god _it hurts to think of how many times they've done this; how many other people have died like him no__**no**__no he can't think about this, has to stop shove it back shove it out of his brain or he won't stop screaming and fuck them if they're getting any more of a show out of him_) move away from the cross to something that Jim can't see. The collar keeps him from turning his head to look, but Jim is pretty sure that he doesn't want to see what they're holding anyway.

He's right. The crowd is on their feet again, stomping and screaming. Jim can only see out of what's left of his peripheral vision, but the muscles in broad back of the guard shifts and ripples as he raises something up, showing them off.

Jim closes his eyes.

If Jim had a bird's eye view- he would see that the steel nails are thick, easily an inch thick. They end in a serrated edge so that they will cut through flesh and muscle and tendon with ease. Both guards do his wrists first, placing the nails in the very center of his wrists. Another two nails go at his elbows, and another two in the thick, ropey biceps of his arms.

But, Jim's doesn't have a bird's eye view. He's here; center stage.

His body is prone to pain. He's hurt himself and been hurt by others in a thousands of different ways. And truth be told, it's not the bright flare of pain that makes him forget that he wasn't going to scream. There's a sound when each one embeds itself into the wood of the cross beam, crisp and meaty like the sound of a snapped chicken bone as the guards carefully avoid any major arteries and organs. As he draws in breath to scream, Jim thinks crazily that if he had to hear that sound again, it wouldn't matter what they do to him. He'd be too insane to notice.

The crowd's chant changes again. They know that they're controlling this show, and revel in the power that it gives them. Jim can't hate them for it.

He doesn't think that they know any better.

"Libero! _Libero_! **_Libero_**!" Their demand that he be raised gets louder and louder until Jim can feel it in the back of his teeth. The links of the chains drag against each other as the slaves begin to pull, causing the heavy wood to slowly rise up from it's position on the dias. The other four guards from earlier quickly snap it into place. The crash of the thick chains being released onto the stone is loud in Jim's ears over the roaring of the crowd.

His body sags against the collar and nails as gravity pulls him down. It is fucking _agonizing_. Jim thought that he'd be able to ignore it, to lock himself in his mind until the end.

Jim is an idiot.

After a while, Jim can't keep his body still. He's completely lost track of time. The damaged nerves in his body don't seem to know that they're completely fucked, and every once in awhile, Jim will writhe in place, half strangling himself as he spasms in place. They'd started this little party at sunup, but since Jim couldn't turn his head he couldn't look at where the sun was to gauge the time. Hours. It had to be.

Yesterday, while still in the slave pens, Jim hadn't understood the pitying glances the other slaves had given him when the guards had ordered that he drink. The water had been tepid and tasted faintly of iron, but Jim had gorged himself. Jim hadn't had the heart to take food away from the other slaves, so had eaten on a few bites of bread in the days that he'd been locked up. The water was a comforting weight in his belly, and he had surprised himself by sleeping, comforted by the relative rareness of being full.

Now though? Now it made sense.

The screams of the crowd when he first began to piss himself were humiliating, which was rather the point. His urine burned when it touched the cuts on his legs, and that was just something else Jim had to endure. He couldn't keep the flies away from him. Given everything else that had happened, Jim never thought that the incessant drone and biting sting of insects would be a big deal. Some long-grained instinct had him tensing in reaction when they bit his flesh, which caused him to feel the rip of flesh around the nails that held him to the cross beam.

Jim lost track of time. He didn't know if it was actually dark, or if he had dreamed it. He was lost in his head, meeting ghosts of his past and fanciful spectres of a future he'd never see. Sometimes he talked. He pleaded and begged with them. He was scared. He was sorry. He was ashamed. Please don't leave him alone like this. Not like this.

When they crushed his legs, all Jim could do was scream.

The cameras recorded it in loving detail.

Spock wouldn't look at him. He stood with his arms held behind his back, staring out at the streaks of stars and planets through the observation deck's windows. Jim was so tired. He just wanted to sag into Spock's strength, just for a second. But Spock wouldn't look at him.

"I'm not gonna apologize."

Jim's voice sounded weird. It hurt to talk. For some reason he was dreadfully, painfully thirsty. His voice almost didn't sound like his own.

"Come on, Spock. You telling me you wouldn't have done the same thing? 'Cuz that's bullshit. You're the one that told me that the needs of the many outweigh... blah blah blah."

Jim wanted to reach out to him, but couldn't. He tried again, but it was like his arms wouldn't work. He was just so fucking tired. Maybe he could just rest for a minute. Just a second or two. Just to shake off the edge of this strange lethargy. Then he could finish their conversation.

Jim shut his eyes.

Just for a minute.

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TBC! (you might want to subscribe for updates!)

As always, thanks for commenting and the concrit, either here tumblr, or twitter!


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: See previous chapter's warnings. Notes on the timeline at the end... (includes spoilers for STID)

A/N: Entire bits of dialogue and plot are taken directly from this transcript of Bread and Circuses. Rights to all that belong to a number of people who are not me. :D You can, however watch the episode on Netflix if you are so inclined.

* * *

**-Part II-**

**Captain's log, stardate 2261.170 **.

You would think that after almost a year, talking to myself would make me feel less like an assclown. Nope. We-

"Shit. Computer, delete previous log, authorization Kirk, James T." Jim scratched absently at the edge of his nose, making a goofy face in the reflective surface of his desk. He understood the reason why Starfleet would want their Commanding officers to start with these log things, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they really weren't as private as he'd been assured. Hell, Jim could hack into Starfleet records with hardly any effort.

At the onset of their five-year mission, Jim had been so pathetically grateful to be on his ship again; out doing what he loved to do, that he'd willingly agreed to all the security stipulations. But a part of him still balked at putting mission information in his logs. Even his own private logs. Still, in the interests of playing politics...

**Captain's log, stardate 2261.170 **.

We've been called to investigate what appears to be wreckage identified as the SS Beagle. Further investigation shows that theBeagle was last captained by an old friend of mine, Captain R M Merick.

The wreckage was extensive. We first came across a part of a nacelle, completely blown to shit. Spock and Chekov managed to follow the wreckage back to the FGC 892 System. Not much is known about this system, which is my fancy "Captainy" way of saying we have no fucking idea what we're going into. That probably shouldn't be such a good thing, right? Still, I admit that I want to know what happened to Merick. I remember him as being someone who liked to drink more than study. Kind of a dick, to be honest. Still, seeing the wreckage of his ship makes me want to know what happened to him. From merchant marine to blip of space dust is **not** the way I want to go out.

**Captain's log, stardate 2261.171, supplemental.**

I've seen a lot of weird shit since I've been out in the black. It still sometimes blows my mind that we continue to see a historical repeat of things that have happened in old Earth history. We found the rest of the Beagle, empty of all life forms in orbit around a Class M planet. It's like Earth, but not. Spock says that the proportion of land to water is exactly as on Earth. Density five point five, diameter seven nine one seven at the equator, atmosphere seventy eight percent nitrogen, twenty one percent oxygen. Nice to know that we won't have to go down in any protective clothing, I guess. Still- I can't help but wonder what exactly happened to the Beag-"

"Spock to Captain Kirk."

"Computer, pause transmission." Jim sat back in his chair, raising his arms up in a stretch, trying to ignore the sudden influx of adrenaline at Spock's carefully blank voice. "Kirk here. Yeah, Spock?"

"Your presence is requested on the Bridge, sir."

Jim sighed. So much for getting an early night's sleep. "On my way. Kirk out."

Jim stood up and stripped off his Academy sweats, finding a clean uniform and dressing quickly. It wasn't the first time that Spock had had to interrupt Jim after his shift technically ended, and it wouldn't be the last. Still, Jim wished could say that the necessity of having the Captain on the bridge was the only thing that had had him moving so quickly.

It wasn't.

It wasn't even close.

He felt like a fucking teenager who unexpectedly heard their crush's voice. A few days ago Jim had caught himself inventing a reason to go see Spock in his labs.

It sucked.

Jim didn't see any of his crew as he made his way from his quarters to the lift. He leaned back against the back wall and pinched the top of his nose, frowning. It wasn't just that a little crush (okay- a four- year crush, whatever.) was pathetic. It was fucking unprofessional. And that pissed him off.

After... everything that had happened: the weeks dirtside, the cleanup of the Academy buildings that had been destroyed, the funerals... getting the Enterprise for an actual five year exploration mission had still been a shock. The first time that Sulu had taken them out it had hit Jim like a punch to the face that Pike wasn't back there watching his ass anymore.

Oh, sure Jim had resented Pike at the time. Jim had been convinced that he was above all that. That somehow cockiness could in any way make up for experience. Then he'd had his ass handed to him by a batshit insane megalomaniac with a penchant for monologuing, and ... well, now he had experience. A little bit of caution. Jim liked to think that Pike would be proud of him.

Still, the old man would laugh his ass off if he knew that Jim was in... Nope. That Jim had a little preoccupation with his first officer.

The lift doors opened with a swoosh, and Jim stepped through, nodding to the ensign that saluted him. Jim couldn't help the faint twitch of lips at the calling of "Captain on the Bridge!" that followed his first step onto the bridge of his Enterprise. Hubris-or Pride-; he didn't much give a fuck. It was his, and he was damn proud each and every time he walked through onto his bridge. Jim caught a glimpse of Uhura working quickly at her station, her face blank as she worked. For her to beat him there, Spock must have called her first.

Spock had already turned, standing gracefully from the Captain's chair. They were on the tail end of the Beta shift. Jim nodded a few times at crew members' smiles as they left their stations. There was the normal kerfuffle from people stepping aside and logging in and out of bridge stations, and Jim stood to the side, waiting patiently for Spock's acknowledgement, knowing that his Vulcan First Officer would wait to speak until the hubbub had died down. A quick view of the viewscreen showed that the Enterprise was in orbit around a class M planet, which given the information he'd had from the last shift report, Jim knew to be the same planet where they had found the wreckage from the Beagle.

The lift doors opened and Chekov stumbled out, looking as though he didn't even notice the cup of coffee that was clutched in his hand. Jim had to bite the inside of his cheek when Sulu took it out of his hand and handed it off to an ensign that was just coming off shift. Chekov rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn, flopping down onto his seat with a muffled grunt.

Sulu refused to meet Jim's gaze, seating himself with a carefully blank face. The lift doors shut behind the last of the departing crew members.

"Captain."

"Commander."

There was a muffled snort from one of the crew people behind Jim to his left. Jim winced inwardly. He hadn't meant to mock the inflection in Spock's voice. It had just sort of slipped out without Jim making a conscious decision. That kept happening. Jim would mean to say something one way, and it would come out completely wrong, as though he was deliberately trying to be as much of a dick to Spock as he could possibly be.

Spock raised an eyebrow. Jim tried not to find it endearing, and failed rather miserably. "The wreckage has been confirmed as the Beagle." Spock tapped something and the viewscreen zoomed in, showing the twisted, melted metal that was once a starship. Spock tugged the front of his shirts with a careful, precise move and stepped to Jim's right, waiting for him to take the Captain's chair. "However, scans show that there are no biological remains in or around the wreckage."

That was weird. "No bodies?"

Spock's face twitched in the way Jim knew was the Vulcan's version of an eyeroll. Jim couldn't believe him. Oh yeah- Spock could say that he was unemotional until he was green in the face (green in the face, ha, Jim was fucking hilarious), but Jim knew that when people repeated things after Spock had just said them drove the Vulcan absolute bugshit. "No, sir."

Which is why Jim did it whenever he could. There was more than one reason Jim called this ... thing a crush. His ridiculous urge to pull Spock's pigtails was just one of them. Jim opened his mouth to give the order, but before he could speak Uhura cleared her throat.

"Captain, planetary scans show that both amplitude and frequency modulation being used. I think I can pick up something visual. It's a news broadcast using a system I think they once called ... video."

"I believe, Lieutenant, that television was the more widely-used, colloquial term."

"Yes, sir."

Jim saw Chekov and Sulu meet each other's gazes out of the corner of his eye and wanted to sigh. He knew that the two of them had worked out all their issues, but that didn't stop his crew from gossiping every time either Uhura or Spock spoke, reading whole volumes of drama in one bob of a ponytail or a twitch of an eyebrow. Jim was not exactly a stranger to the speculation drawn from every single expression on one's face, but he heartily wished people on his own damn ship would mind their business.

From working with her so closely, Jim knew that the tightness in Uhura's voice was from exhaustion, but it was obvious that the two other senior officers thought it was just her being snippy. Jim made a mental note to send another memo on the professionalism of inter-officer relations, wondering if he could do it without being obvious about who he was talking about. Maybe he could have Carol look it over for him. She was better at the warm and fuzzy frufru shit than he was.

"Thank you, Lieutenant, Commander. Put it on screen."

"Yes, Captain."

There was the sound of frequency feedback, and Jim tried not to wince as Uhura quickly adjusted the controls. The image was in greyscale. Jim's mom used to watch ancient holos that were shot in black and white, and this was very much like that. It looked to be a newscast of some sort, showing men in primitive riot gear turning on a group of people. The screams of the crowd were muffled in the news coverage. Instead, there was a smooth voice-over of a male narrator. "Today police rounded up still another group of dissidents. Authorities are as yet unable to explain these fresh outbreaks of treasonable disobedience by well-treated, well-protected, intelligent slaves. Now turning to the world of sports and bringing you the taped results of the arena games last night." The cast switched to two men fighting with swords, faces pockmarked and marred with old battles. "The first heat involved amateurs. They're petty thieves from City Prison. Conducted, however, with traditional weapons, it provided some amusement for a few moments. In the second heat, a slightly more professional display in the spirit of our splendid past, when gladiator Claudius Marcus killed the last of the barbarians, William B. Harrison, in an excellent example of-" The image went fuzzy, then broke off as Uhura lost the transmission.

"Shall I try to get it back, Sir?"

"No- I think we saw enough. Slaves and gladiators. 20th- Century Rome, right?" It was odd that the planet's culture had seemed to transplant itself right onto another planet, but the phenomena had happened enough that Jim could almost write it off as normal.

Jim registered the swoosh of the lift doors just as Bones cleared his throat. "What the hell, Jimmy? You want some popcorn?"

"Bones!" Jim grinned as he slapped him on the shoulder, mostly because he knew Bones was too much of a stubborn ass to acknowledge that it hurt like fuck.

Bones scowled. "Infant. You beamin' down then? Let me guess. Landing party of one, phasers blasing?" Jim snorted and Bones couldn't keep up the scowl for too long before his face relaxed into the same helpless, annoyed affection that Jim tended to think of as 'his' look.

Spock didn't clear his throat, instead shifting just slightly enough that the movement registered in Jim's peripheral vision. "Captain, the one described as the barbarian is also listed here. Flight officer William B. Harrison of the SS Beagle. Evidence suggests that there were some survivors down on the planet."

Jim turned to Spock. "Are survivors on the planet, Mister Spock."

Spock allowed himself one long blink. "Sir, there is no evidence that-"

Jim jerked his chin up, staring into Spock's brown eyes for a beat. "Until we confirm otherwise, we're on a search and rescue mission."

"If you think your fool-ass is going without me then you've got another damn thing coming." Bones planted his feet, shifting his weight in front of Jim, his scowl darkening.

"Aw. You think I'm gonna take this without my best friend?" Not a chance! I need someone to save my ass. Spock you can-"

"I will be beaming down with you and the doctor."

Jim blinked. Tried to tell himself that his stomach wasn't jumping around like a girl who'd just been asked to prom. Failed.

"Sure. Wouldn't be a party without you, Spock. Kirk to Mister Scott."

There was a loud clang and a muffled boom that the bridge crew carefully ignored. Eventually the muffled "Aye, sir?" over the sound of coughing made Jim have to bite the inside of his cheek so that he wouldn't grin. He didn't even bother to try to meet Bones' gaze, the fucker. Or they'd both be rolling around the damn floor.

"Scotty, tell me you're not breaking my girl."

"Err. Technically, she's nae broken, sir. Just a wee bit... rearranged. Temporarily o'course."

Jim wasn't even going to ask. "...Right. Well you're needed here. Ready the transporter beam, Spock. We're beaming down. Mr. Scott, you've got the bridge."

Jim was such a old hat at having his molecules half scrambled that he didn't even bat an eye as he, Spock and Bones appeared on the planet's surface. He looked around, hand lazily on his phaser. The air had a faint odor of sage, but was otherwise unremarkable. Jim could have been just about anywhere in low hill country. The sky was an almost painful blue, the sun's beams highlighting the numerous rocks and small patches of grass on the hillside.

Jim sighed. "Jeez, Spock. Did you beam us far enough out? I thought we were supposed to be looking for signs of life, not endless stretches of unpopulated wasteland."

Spock's jaw tightened, as it often did when Jim found fault with something he did. It kind of bothered Jim that it only happened with him; that Spock kept his face carefully blank whenever anyone else questioned one of his decisions. He raised his tricorder, scanning for a moment, the two flicks of his wrist clearly broadcasting what he thought of Jim's comment. "While this area is certainly unpopulated, we are not all that far from the planet's emergence of civilization."

Bones gave Jim a weird look and Jim found himself feeling like even more of an idiot. He had to have said something seriously wrong to Spock if Bones was calling him on his bullshit. Fuck. Fuck! He had to get this shit under control. It wasn't fair to Spock. Jim followed Spock down the steep slope, Bones walking slightly behind him.

"Fascinating. This atmosphere is remarkably similar to your twentieth century. Moderately industrialised pollution containing substantial amounts of carbon monoxide and partially consumed hydrocarbons." Spock walked nimbly down the hillside, acknowledging Jim and Bones' slightly less than graceful scramble behind him with a slight quirk of his eyebrow.

Bones sucked his teeth. "Smog, Spock. The word was smog." Jim stumbled on a loose rock and tripped into Bones, who caught him with a muffled 'unf' and a positively filthy look.

If it was anyone else, Jim would swear that Spock took the last few steps onto the flat surface almost smugly, with a little skip to his movements as though he were shouting 'ha, watch this you foolish humans and your less than adequate physiology.' "Yes, I believe that was the term. I had no idea you were that much of a historian, Doctor." Spock wasn't even out of breath.

Bones grunted. "I'm not, Spock. I was simply trying to stop you from giving us a whole lecture on the goddamn subject. Jim, is there anything at all we know about this planet?"

Jim looked up from where he'd been carefully putting one foot in front of the other. "The SS Beagle was the first ship to make a survey of this star sector when it disappeared.

Spock's tricorder beeped, and Spock gave it a sharp look, as though it had surprised him. "Then the Prime Directive is in full force, Captain?"

Jim felt his entire face flush at the mention of the Prime Directive. He totally needed that reminder, thanks. He huffed an irritated breath. "No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet."

Bones chimed in with an almost sing-song voice, reciting with Jim. "No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilisations... sing it with me, kids!"

Jim coughed something that sounded suspiciously like "fuck you" to his best friend. Bones just grinned beatifically at Jim, then cursed when he tripped over a hidden tree root. Spock's hand whipped out to steady him almost before Bones' gravity had shifted.

"Ya know, just once, I'd like to be able to land someplace and say, Behold, I am the Archangel Gabriel."

Jim scoffed. "Oh come on, Bones. These people wouldn't know the Archangel Gabriel from Khan."

Bones made a strange sound- something between a snort and all of his internal organs collapsing at once.

"What. Too soon?" It was Jim's turn for the cheesy grin in Bones' direction. "Oh come on, that was funny! You almost laughed."

" I fail to see the humour in that situation, Doctor." Spock ignored Jim's comment, as he tended to do whenever Khan's name was mentioned. Spock had never told Jim how he'd managed to bring Khan into custody, and Nyota very carefully changed the subject whenever Jim asked her, but it wasn't hard to infer that Spock really didn't like that guy.

Bones went along with it, jumping the last step so that he was even with Spock on the flat part of the land. "Naturally. You could hardly claim to be an angel with those pointy ears, Mister Spock. But say you landed someplace with a pitchfo-shit!"

The gunshot rang out, echoing through the silent hills so loudly that birds took to the sky, attempting to escape. Jim rolled the last few feet, flopping rather ungracefully on the ground as Spock and Bones immediately sent their attention to the right and left, looking for the shooter.

"Do not move!"

"Interesting. The language here is-"

"Yes, English, gold star you damn pointy-eared..."

"Guys. Is this really the time?" Jim tried to casually reach for his phaser only to hear another gunshot. It was so close to his foot that it scraped the very edge of his 'Fleet boots.

"In the name of the First Citizen, throw down your weapons!"

Shit. Shit, balls, fuck. He was never going to hear the end of this.

* * *

Notes: **BECAUSE THEY CANNOT KEEP A FUCKING TIMELINE THE WAY RODDENBERRY INVENTED THE FUCKING THING** (because fuck leap years and the fact that Vulcans pretty much made the Federation; we'll go with Earth years.)*grumble* I did my best with the timing. So. **Half-assed **** Abrams/Orci timeline: ** 2009 movie- 2258.42: 11 February, 2258 2012 movie- 2259.59: 28 February, 2259 2012 movie where Kirk gives funeral speech 2260.91: 1 April, 2059 (idk I just picked a nice day to have a funeral.) 2012 movie- 2260.170: 19, July 2260 starts 5 year mission. (gold star if you can tell me the significance of the date. :D)


End file.
